finally got me an orca.... and..........

[defekt]

Orca handles well, and looks great. No denying any of that. However...

When it comes to actually bussing passengers around the multi-role ships do it better (in terms of cash), faster, and safer.

Long range charters are nothing short of masochistic in an Orca or Beluga. (With the ultimate joke being how large the Beluga's tank is.) Conda's do it better. Hell, even an Asp Explorer can ping-pong long range charters in (relatively) no time at all.

The Orca and Beluga need a reason to exist, and that means breaking FD's abusive relationship with multi-role ships being the best at everything (rather than just being able to turn their hand to anything - a crucial distinction).

 

[Eloy]

how are others finding it? Is it down to me not finding the "right" system yet with a bigger supply of luxury passengers?
thanks

Remember: Your status with the local faction is most important for mission payouts. So don´t hop around in search for good payouts; that way you´ll never get them

 

[Momoka Azuka]

I was surprised to find out that the Orca is actually faster than a Cobra according to the wiki. But I see that it requires a large landing pad. I absolutely love flying the Cobra, more so than the Imperial Courier which is collecting dust. Because the Cobra is so fast and agile it's really fast for taking off, landing and flying through the mailbox. It's the ship for grinding local missions to increase your rep with a faction to unlock engineers. But after reading your post I'm considering buying an Orca. This might be ideal for the passenger missions which pay a lot when you are allied with a faction and only want you to transport passengers to other local systems.

I'll soon be adding grade 5 dirty drives to all my ships.

To give you an idea for just how fast that ship is, I got a pretty bad roll on a grade 3 Dirty Drive Tuning and she can still boost to 496 unladen. I've got 1 Cobra in my fleet that's faster than that but she's got a grade 5. I adore my Cobras, I got 6 of them now, but yeah the Orca's basically on the same level in terms of speed. I love that ship

 

[Deleted member 110222]

what are you talking about

the Orca is literally a long, throbbing space       and it goes fast too

manly as duck

Paint it purple and I can only imagine finding it in your wife's/girlfriend's "private" drawer.

 

[DoctorDanny]

To be fair, the Type-6 is a better ship. Far more manly. For manly men.

I don't presently own one.

There are few ships with a more manly shape than the Orca.

Of course yours might look like a T6 though..hehehe...

 

[wenkman]

Have mine painted yellow with luxury cabins and a class 5 fuel tank and class 5 fuel scoop.

thing jumps 14ly and can literally go on forever.

with VIP missions from an allied system i can easily earn the 5 mil rebuy in half an hour, so the ships a win in my book.

(looks like a modern BMW, don't know if that's pro manly or against)

 

[Eymerich]

I'm flying a beluga for the sake of variety but every minute I am doing it all I can think is "I could be doing better in my anaconda."

This.

Sometimes I like the RP in Beluga but...

my asp does it better!

 

[NeilF]

I'm flying a beluga for the sake of variety but every minute I am doing it all I can think is "I could be doing better in my anaconda."

I believe a friend of mine has come to the same conclusion...

 

[Truesilver]

I was surprised to find out that the Orca is actually faster than a Cobra according to the wiki.

I adore my Cobras, I got 6 of them now, but yeah the Orca's basically on the same level in terms of speed. I love that ship

The Cobra III is the fastest unmodded sprinter in the game, with a max boost of 464.

The problem is that this speed is only achievable with a stripped down 'racing' build useful for nothing else.

The true speed king was of course the Imperial Clipper, because it was the only ship capable of being easily outfitted to meet its theoretical max boost of 441 and then be able to fight or perform other roles effectively. This is because of the generous disparity betweens its hull mass (400t) and maximum mass to achieve that 441 (720t, i.e. 320 tons to play with). Plus of course its size 6 distributor meant it would catch a 464 Cobra before long anyway - the Cobra can sprint but not for long.

In contrast the massive hull mass of the Orca prevents it from outfitting effectively while matching Clipper speeds.

Of course, post Enhanced Drives the game has changed and the iCourier and iEagle are where it's at.

In this thread I set out max speed, boost and manoeuvrability data for all ships, unmodded, but including with Enhanced Drives. I also deal with the various mass issues:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...aw-for-Every-Ship-in-Game-Official-FDev-Stats

 

[[VR] Deggial]

This (the whole topic) is, why I still think that 1st class cabins should be limited to dedicated passenger ships as well.

Or certain passengers should refuse to board ships that don't fit their expectations: tourists and maybe diplomats on tour might insist on stylish ship apperance. Diplomats on a dangerous diplomatic mission could, however, very well insist on a battle-ready ship like an anaconda and still want to travel 1st class.
Alternatively, we need other modules with passenger-ship limitation that increase payout (customer satisfaction!) or add gameplay. Restaurant- and bar-modules, for example. But this is something for future updates. I am sure, FD will not abandon passenger missions after their introduction in 2.2.

 

[WillFrog]

I'm really enjoying my Orca. It's fast, pretty, handles well (especially in supercruise) and makes shedloads of cash. I can take 32 economy passengers, 6 business, 6 first class and 4 luxury. I've found that's about the right setup. I can usually fill the thing entirely in one go (no mode switching) and make 6-10 million in a single short run.

I only have an FSD mod on there so far, which wasn't that great. 19 LY. I can't wait to mod it out fully and see how fast G5 dirty drives will make it, but I'm earning too much money right now to stop.

 

[careBear1]

I think it would be better to improve passenger ships rather than nerf everything else just because they are 'inadequate'. Slippery slope.
There is already a cabin for only passenger ships: luxury.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Paint it purple and I can only imagine finding it in your wife's/girlfriend's "private" drawer.

Purple eh? Sounds like first-hand experience. ;-)

And this is also why I've named mine the Steely Dan.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

This (the whole topic) is, why I still think that 1st class cabins should be limited to dedicated passenger ships as well.

Or certain passengers should refuse to board ships that don't fit their expectations: tourists and maybe diplomats on tour might insist on stylish ship apperance. Diplomats on a dangerous diplomatic mission could, however, very well insist on a battle-ready ship like an anaconda and still want to travel 1st class.
Alternatively, we need other modules with passenger-ship limitation that increase payout (customer satisfaction!) or add gameplay. Restaurant- and bar-modules, for example. But this is something for future updates. I am sure, FD will not abandon passenger missions after their introduction in 2.2.

Both the Orca and the Beluga are surprisingly well armed for sexy touring ships - 3 well-placed hard points on the Orca, 5 on the Beluga, though I can't attest for their placement at this juncture.